I usually do macro photography, but I had some friends who wanted me to go along and take pictures of them in their awesome costumes~

Their costumes are amazing, I'm just not so sure I am

I'd love some critique, I'm worried about my composition, my posing, and my post work most of all. One thing that I'm aware of is that I have horribly awful noise in most of the pictures. My ISO was up to high, and I didn't realize it

Here are the ones I'd like critique on

Lacus Clyne - Gundam Seed

Ame-Warashi - XxxHoLic

Syaroan - Tsubasa

Syaroan and Mokona - Tsubasa

Mizuki Himeji - Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

Thank you for your time, in even popping in to read this thread, I'm excited to hear critique from everyone

Well I'm no professional photographer but I must say, I really love the 4th one. Something about the like colors makes it very pleasing to me.

Oh thank you It's one of my favorites from the entire shoot, but I wasn't sure how I got the colors like that ^^;; So I thought I'd put it up to be critiqued xD

Quote:

Originally Posted by pillowmonk

Yes the 4th one is really good!
In my opinion it is a bit overexposed, but nevertheless great shot!

Is it badly over exposed to the eye then? I over exposed it in camera on accident, and then switched to a faster shutter speed. However when I went over the pictures at the end of the day, it was my favorite, so I made the overexposure more prevelent in post so that it more clearly defined the cosplayer's facial shape. I thought it helped her look more like a boy xD;;;. So then try and keep things correctly exposed then, gotcha~ Thank you

The first photo has good balance in composition. The lighting is soft and flattering, but her skin is not smooth and she has no make up on. It might have looked nicer to over expose her skin-tones to wash out some details, or use a diffusion filter over the lens. Skin smoothing can be done on the computer in post too.

The second image is also a nice composition. I like the angle of looking down at her to show the dress pletes. The red wig really pops nicely from the nuetral colors and green. The over-all color does seem flat a cold. Maybe that is what you were going for. Warm tones may have been a good choice, but based on her, not so happy expression, it might be appropriate.

The selective focus in the third photo is interesting; especially how you contrasted the two shots side by side.

Photo #4 is a nice idea, looking up at a cute creature on his head, but the lighting is too harsh on the cosplayer's face. The washed out sky is not enhancing the portrait, especially with the white creature bleeding into the bright sky. A higher camera perspective may have solved many issues. It would make the ground become the entire background, and we could see the cosplayer's eyes better, with less looking up the nostrils.

The fith image has a very pretty forground and background, but the exposure washes out much of the potential beauty and color. The model seesm photogenic. You caught her eyes nicely with expression. The skin looks nice at that exposure, her colorful wig and her clothing is washed out, making it seem not important. Photoshop can balance this, if you know how. Cosplay photos should usually show the costume well. Bringing her more into the frame would give a better balance and composition, giving her more importance than the background.

I really like the first one of Syaoran with the flower in focus! The colors seem a little dim in both photos of the 'set'. It looks a little grey out, I know I personally edit these in Photoshop afterwards to keep the colors a bit more true to the costume. The second one would be near perfect if the blur effect wasn't up rather heavily and harshly to the trees behind him.

I usually do macro photography, but I had some friends who wanted me to go along and take pictures of them in their awesome costumes~

Their costumes are amazing, I'm just not so sure I am

I'd love some critique, I'm worried about my composition, my posing, and my post work most of all. One thing that I'm aware of is that I have horribly awful noise in most of the pictures. My ISO was up to high, and I didn't realize it

The crop is bit tight in that the hands are disconnected from the body and seem to kind of float. Either don't have the hands there or pull back enough so that the arms are visible. The colors seem flat and the image lacks contrast.

I would go with just the image on the left. The one on the right, because the background is so far from your subject, it also goes out of focus, but then blends into the foreground blur, which seems awkward to me.

This is the strongest shot. It's very nice. The highlights are a bit blown, but not detrimental like in the last image. It would've been nicer if you could have moved slightly to the left to not have her hand hidden behind the flower and to get more of her body in the frame.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unroyalty

Thank you for your time, in even popping in to read this thread, I'm excited to hear critique from everyone

Overall, good work and hope to see more from you.

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